[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] Excellent commentary on Vanguard's diplomacysystem

[cruise]

Thus spake Raph Koster...
> "Presenting a series of challenges" does not equate to "competition" unless
> you mean competing with yourself... 

Yes, I do :P As I said in another mail, you are competing against 
whoever set the challenges - either yourself, or a third-party.

> In the past I have presented a model wherein we have 
> 
> - symmetric games (where each contestant is playing the same game with the
> same resources on the same field with the same goals: tennis, chess)
> 
> - asymmetric games (where they are not: fox & geese, most player-vs-computer
> games such as Space Invaders)
> 
> - parallel games (where contestants are competing by playing symmetric or
> asymmetric games, and measuring their success rates against each other:
> footraces, high score tables)

I am perfectly willing to say I have a broader definition of 
"competition" that many others - I just blame the years of programming: 
I hate special cases so much I over-generalise :P

On a more serious note, I do feel there can be some generic process that 
describes "game". An atom of game-ness, if you will, that is the 
indivisable building block from which games are created.

I claim that atom is "a challenge."

In "Theory of Fun" you describe play as, fundamentally, a way of 
learning in an unreal, hence safe, environment. Practicing skills needed 
for later life in a way that means failure doesn't matter.

Most other definitions of game or play I've encountered also stress the 
unreality aspect.

My full definition of a game then becomes:

"A series of challenges within a fictional or imagined environment."

And yes, I see these as inherently competitive - you are competing 
against the challenge, and indirectly the setter of that challenge. It 
isn't, however, inherently /confrontational/, which I suspect might be 
the aspect actually being objected to, and I wholeheartedly agree 
figures too frequently in current games. I don't, however, see anything 
automatically wrong with competition.